For efficiency, ING Direct Italy banks on Citrix XenApp solution

Virtualized apps streamline operations and reduce costs

ING Direct is the biggest direct bank in the world, offering its services online, by phone, and via ATM. Without significant overhead costs, such as employing tellers and managers, ING Direct can offer customers lower fees and higher-value services than traditional financial institutions.

ING Direct Italy wanted to expand the idea of direct banking by opening a nationwide network of bank branches—economical spaces where customers could access their accounts via a web terminal or ATM. To realize their vision, IT executives at ING Direct Italy sought a way to provision and deliver bank apps quickly and securely to the retail branches, without increasing IT cost or complexity. ING Direct Italy selected virtualization software from Citrix as the foundation for its innovation and new IT architecture.

With Citrix XenApp software, ING Direct Italy can offer a banking experience like the one consumers get when they log on at home: simple, personal, and convenient. What’s more, the XenApp solution allows the bank to streamline operations so it can pass cost efficiencies on to customers.

Open a nationwide network of bank branches quickly and securely

The bank looked for a virtualization technology that would be reliable and reduce the time and cost of new branch openings. “We wanted an IT solution that would help us implement the bank branches quickly, while still being dependable and secure,” says Daniela Noviello, vice president of information technology at ING Direct Italy. XenApp centralization allows ING Direct Italy to get a bank branch up and running quickly, and it has reduced maintenance costs. The XenApp solution’s speed of deployment and robust scalability has helped ING Direct Italy reduce its bank branch launch times to just three weeks.

Minimize management and maintenance

With XenApp software, ING Direct Italy was able to centralize the IT infrastructure and minimize the management and maintenance required in each bank branch. XenApp software allows IT staff to centrally manage a single instance of each application and virtualize applications and deploy them for online and offline use. When there’s a problem, IT personnel can now intervene via the centralized server rather than going directly to the end device. IT staff can also streamline operations by delivering patches, updates, and other configuration information to multiple virtual machines through a shared desktop image. Additionally, the company has centralized virtual machine management and reduced the operational and storage costs of a desktop virtualization environment.

Deploy a more agile, secure, and efficient IT environment

Thanks to the XenApp solution, the IT team at ING Direct Italy can now manage apps in the data center and distribute them instantly as a service to users, wherever the users are and whatever device they’re using. For instance, IT staff can now deliver centrally hosted Windows applications to all users without the necessity of installing them on local devices.

“Citrix allows us to choose the applications we want to virtualize, which offers substantial benefits in terms of bandwidth, cost reduction, and speed of use. We can quickly upload the applications we want, thereby reducing traffic,” Noviello says.

The Citrix solution has reduced the cost of application management by up to 50 percent, increased IT response speed when a user requests application deployment, and improved the security of applications and data.

Produce a more secure and better customer experience

With the Citrix solution, ING Direct Italy makes the most of its infrastructure. By streamlining bandwidth usage, it speeds response times and makes transactions as fast as what customers get at home. This service experience is a key differentiator for the company. XenApp software also ensures high-level security, which is crucial for any financial institution to retain customers’ trust and to maintain compliance requirements.

Extend infrastructure across the bank branch network

With the XenApp solution, ING Direct Italy can quickly scale its infrastructure and meet the needs of many bank branches at once.

“Partnering with Citrix helped ensure the success of the bank branch model in Italy, and we are now in a position to share our positive experiences with other regions around the world,” says Noviello.

Citrix allows us to choose the applications we want to virtualize, which offers substantial benefits in terms of bandwidth, cost reduction, and speed of use. We can quickly upload the applications we want, thereby reducing traffic.